- Tried & Tasted -

Sunday, 9 August 2015

Happy birthday, Singapore! You can have the cake and the cookies!

I'm so excited and happy to be able to bake a cake and some cookies to celebrate my country's birthday!

Happy 50th Birthday, Singapore! I'm so proud to be a Singaporean!

On the 9th of August 2015, my country celebrates her Golden Jubilee.

This celebratory flag cake consisting of a sponge cake layered with passion fruit whipped cream and frosted with fresh whipped cream, decorated with fresh raspberry and vanilla cutout cookies decorated with royal icing.

The red portion of the flag symbolizes "universal brotherhood and equality of man", and white, "pervading and everlasting purity and virtue". The waxing crescent moon "represents a young nation on the ascendant". The five stars
"stand for the nation's ideals of democracy, peace, progress, justice
and equality".

Now let's start making the cake and cookies!

Sponge Cake Recipemake a 14" by 11" sheet cake (to make this cake you need to make 3 layers or 3 times this recipe)

Ingredients

33g butter, melted

1 2/3 Tbsp milk

150g unbleached organic flour

5 large eggs (each of the egg used was 57g)

150g sugar

1 2/3 tsp vanilla extract

Steps to bake:

Preheat oven to 180C. Line the bottom of a 14" by 11" cake pan with parchment paper.

Mix melted butter with milk in a small bowl and set aside.

Sieve the flour twice to aerate it.

Boil water in a pot then turn down to a simmer to create a double boiler for the next step.

In
the bowl of a stand mixer, add eggs and sugar. Place it over the
simmering water and whisk the mixture with a hand whisk until it is
lukewarm and sugar have dissolved. Rub the mixture between your index
finger and the thumb and if you can feel the sugar grains, continue to
whisk over the double boiler until sugar is dissolved. Take the mixing
bowl off the heat when you are doing that.

Then set the bowl on the stand mixer and whipped on high until the egg mixture is very thick.

Add
the sieved flour in 3 parts into the egg mixture.Fold, by hand, with a
spatula one-third of the flour until it is incorporated into the egg
mixture. Repeat with the rest of the flour.

Then fold in the mixture of melted butter and milk.

Pour
the batter equally into the prepared pan. Bake for 15 minutes
or until cake tester comes out clean from the center of the cake.

Take
the cake out from the oven and leave it cooling in the pan for 15
minutes. Remove the cake from
the pan and let cool on the rack for 30 minutes.

Bake another 2 more layers.

Fresh Whipped Cream

Ingredients

2 liters of whipped cream, cold

7 Tbsp sugar

Steps to whipped cream:

Pour the cold cream into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment.

Whip the cream on high and slowly stream in the sugar as you whip.

Whipped till stiff peaks.

Use the cream immediately or cover it with cling wrap and place into the fridge till ready to frost the cake.

Assembling the Cake

fresh whipped cream

sponge cake layers

Steps to assemble:

Place
one cake layer onto a cake board. Scoop 1/2 cup of whipped cake
onto the layer and spread the cream evenly using an offset spatula.

Place another layer of cake on the cream
and repeat the process.

When
the top layer of cake is placed on, scoop1 1/2 cup of whipped cream onto
the top of the cake and using the spatula spread the cream evenly and
down the sides of the cake, until the whole cake is covered with the
whipped cream.

Decorate the cake and refrigerated the cake for at least 3 hours or overnight.

I have made the crescent, stars and letters iced cut out cookies using the funfetti lolly cookies and piped royal icing on the cookies.

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'Pastry is like people...Some dough needs a lot of kneading, some requires much less. Some dough is satisfied to rise just a little, while other dough needs to double in size. All dough needs warmth to rise.'